Ibn Zayd, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Ibrahim ibn Saʿd, Abu Ishaq al-Fazari, Ismaʿil ibn ʿAyyash, Ibn al-Mubarak, the judge Abu Yusuf, Ibn ʿUlayyah, Saʿid ibn Muhammad al-Warraq, Sufyan ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Sulayman al-Darani, ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Thaqafi, Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Umawi, Yahya ibn Saʿid al-Qattan, Yazid ibn Harun, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn al-ʿUmari, and many others besides them.
He is the principal transmitter of the hadith, “Actions are judged by intentions,” and through him it became so well-known that nearly two hundred people are said to have related it from him; the chain even reaches the students of Ibn Tabarzad with unusually few intermediaries.
Scholars have differed over his lineage. Abu ʿUbaydah ibn Abi al-Safar said:
“Abu Usamah narrated to us; he said: Yahya ibn Saʿid ibn Qays ibn Qahd al-Ansari narrated to me, from Saʿid ibn al-Musayyib.”
Muhammad ibn ʿUbayd ibn Hassan said, “Hammad narrated to us, from Yahya ibn Saʿid, who said:
‘Habibah bint Sahl was one of my paternal aunts.’”
We were also informed by Yahya ibn Saʿid ibn Qays ibn ʿAmr ibn Sahl.
I say: This Habibah is the woman who declared, “Neither I nor Thabit ibn Qays ibn Shammas.”
As for Qays ibn ʿAmr, he was a Companion; a hadith of his is found in the Sunan concerning the two rakʿahs of daybreak ⦗1⦘.
(1) Reported by Abu Dawud (no. 1267) in the Book of Prayer, chapter “When the sunnah of dawn (subh) is missed, when should it be made up?”; by al-Tirmidhi (no. 422) in the Book of Prayer, chapter “He who misses the two rakʿas before Fajr should pray them after the obligatory Fajr”; by Ibn Majah (no. 1154) in the Book on Establishing Prayer, same chapter title; by Ahmad 5/447; and by al-Hakim 1/275, through the isnad of ʿAbd Allah ibn Numayr – Saʿd ibn Saʿid – Muhammad ibn Ibrahim – from his grandfather Qays ibn ʿAmr who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ came out while the prayer had been established, so I performed the dawn prayer with him. When the Prophet ﷺ finished, he saw me still praying and said: ‘Take it easy, Qays—two prayers back-to-back?’ I replied, ‘Messenger of Allah, I had not prayed the two rakʿas of Fajr.’ He said, ‘Then do so.’” All the transmitters are trustworthy, although Muhammad ibn Ibrahim did not directly hear from Qays. The narration, however, also comes with a continuous, sound chain: al-Hakim (1/274–275) and, following him, al-Bayhaqi 2/483 record it through al-Rabiʿ ibn Sulayman – Asad ibn Musa – al-Layth ibn Saʿd – Yahya ibn Saʿid – from his father – from his grandfather. Al-Hakim noted that Qays ibn Qahd is a Companion and declared the chain authentic according to the criteria of the two Shaykhs (al-Bukhari and Muslim); al-Dhahabi agreed, and Ibn Khuzaymah authenticated it as well (no. 1116).